i was riding the 80 bus yesterday morning and the sun was shining. the cherry blossoms are blooming in d.c. and as i headed down north capitol i had a sudden sense of peace. it was as though, right there in the chaos of public transportation, a weight lifted off my heart. that's when i remembered it was the end of march. an anniversary of sorts.

you see, i had my heart broken one march not so long ago. and not little broken. big broken. its been two years and a hell of a journey since then. there were times i knew i would be okay...more when i thought i never would. i cried myself to sleep for months. i convinced myself that i had lost not only a relationship, but a part of myself. i went to therapy. i went to italy. i ate ice cream. i worked at camp. i dated someone else. i tried everything i could, but at the end of the day i still had to face what happened. i had to implicate myself equally in the failure of our relationship. i had to stop blaming him and start taking a look at myself. i had to tell the truth.

so i did. i spent two years learning how to tell myself the truth. i faced my mistakes head on. and i did it alone. i grieved every part of what i had lost to show the world that what we had meant something. that it mattered. i told our story and when i did i got angry. but i cried and i laughed too. i shared what we were because i was terrified of losing who i was. and i thought we were who i was. but then i realized, my life is a lot bigger than that.

i've never had all the answers. i've never been the girl who got things right on the first try or who always remembers her umbrella. i'm a katie girl, after all. complicated, messy. my life was never going to be a fairy tale where you meet the love of your life at fifteen and then spend happily ever after on a bed of rose petals with 2.5 children and a white picket fence. real life, for me, was so much more. it was realizing i was a feminist. it was moving half way across the country. it was discovering social justice. it was sex and red wine. it was thinking sex and red wine weren't a sin. it was independence of thought in the face of religious dogmatism. it was understanding what love is. it was acknowledging that sometimes i need to be taken care of too. it was throwing out the shoe box under my bed with magazine cut-outs of pink bridesmaid dresses, a vera wang wedding gown, and a tiffany ring. it was finding myself again for the first time.

so i took down the last picture yesterday. no, it wasn't of him...those i took down long ago. it was of me when we were together. a smiling, eighteen year old girl...thin, gorgeous, radiating the happiness of being in love. i kept it on my wall as a reminder of who i wanted to be again. but you know what i realized on the bus yesterday? really letting go means realizing i don't want to be that girl again. i'm not going to keep looking back and wishing. its time to start looking forward and knowing that this is my life. right now. and that the most authentic version of myself is not who i was standing in the driveway that day in a black dress. it is me. and i'm not looking at my life through the clouded glasses of that relationship and of who i was, anymore. its time for a new paradigm.

so i'm forgiving. i'm moving on for the last time. that was the feeling on the bus yesterday. after all the false starts and declarations, that was the real moment of letting go. just like i knew, in my heart, that it was really over when i hung up the phone two years ago...i know now that i have forgiven and i am forgiven. do i miss him? of course. i think i always will. but the good news is that my happily ever after is still going to happen. complications and all.

xoxo.
ellie

the heart of the matter
india.arie

i got the call today, i didn't wanna hear
but i knew that it would come
an old true friend of ours was talkin' on the phone
she said you found someone
and i thought of all the bad luck,
and all the struggles we went through
how I lost me and you lost you
what are these voices outside love's open door
make us throw off our contentment
and beg for something more?

i've been learning to live without you now
but I miss you sometimes
the more i know, the less i understand
all the things I thought I knew, i'm learning them again
I've been tryin' to get down to the heart of the matter
but my will gets weak
and my thoughts seem to scatter
but I think it's about forgiveness
forgiveness
even if, even if you don't love me anymore

these times are so uncertain
there's a yearning undefined
and people filled with rage
we all need a little tenderness
how can love survive in such a graceless age
and the trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness
they're the very things we kill, I guess
pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms
and the work they put between us,
you know it doesn't keep us warm

all the people in your life who've come and gone
they let you down, you know they hurt your pride
better put it all behind you; cause life goes on
you keep carrin' that anger, it'll eat you up inside

i wanna be happily everafter
and my heart is so shattered
but I know it's about forgiveness
forgiveness
even if, even if you don't love me anymore